世紀文學經典:《百年孤獨》第20章Part3

Suddenly, like the stampede in that world of happy unawareness, came the news of Gaston’s return. Aureliano and Amaranta ?rsula opened their eyes, dug deep into their souls, looked at the letter with their hands on their hearts, and understood that they were so close to each other that they preferred death to separation. Then she wrote her husband a letter of contradictory truths in which she repeated her love and said how anxious she was to see him again, but at the same time she admitted as a design of fate the impossibility of living without Aureliano. Contrary to what they had expected, Gaston sent them a calm, almost paternal reply, with two whole pages devoted to a warning against the fickleness of passion and a final paragraph with unmistakable wishes for them to be as happy as he had been during his brief conjugal experience. It was such an unforeseen attitude that Amaranta ?rsula felt humiliated by the idea that she had given her husband the pretext that he had wanted in order to abandon her to herfate. The rancor was aggravated six months later when Gaston wrote again from Léopoldville, where he had finally recovered the airplane, simply to ask them to ship him the velocipede, which of all that he had left behind in Macondo was the only thing that had any sentimental value for him. Aureliano bore Amaranta ?rsula’s spite patiently and made an effort to show her that he could be as good a husband in adversity as in prosperity, and the daily needs that besieged them when Gaston’s last money ran out created a bond of solidarity between them that was not as dazzling and heady as passion, but that let them make love as much and be as happy as during their uproarious and salacious days. At the time Pilar Ternera died they were expecting a child.
In the lethargy of her pregnancy, Amaranta ?rsula tried to set up a business in necklaces made out of the backbones of fish. But except for Mercedes, who bought a dozen, she could not find any customers. Aureliano was aware for the first time that his gift for languages, his encyclopedic knowledge, his rare faculty for remembering the details of remote deeds and places without having been there, were as useless as the box of genuine jewelry that his wife owned, which must have been worth as much as all the money that the last inhabitants of Macondo could have put together. They survived miraculously. Although Amaranta ?rsula did not lose her good humor or her genius for erotic mischief, she acquired the habit of sitting on the porch after lunch in a kind of wakeful and thoughtful siesta. Aureliano would accompany her. Sometimes they would remain there in silence until nightfall, opposite each other, looking into each other’s eyes, loving each other as much as in their scandalous days. The uncertainty of thefuture made them turn their hearts toward the past. They saw themselves in the lost paradise of the deluge, splashing in the puddles in the courtyard, killing lizards to hang on ?rsula, pretending that they were going to bury her alive, and those memories revealed to them the truth that they had been happy together ever since they had had memory. Going deeper into the past, Amaranta ?rsula remembered the afternoon on which she had gone into the silver shop and her mother told her that little Aureliano was nobody’s child because he had been found floating in a basket. Although the version seemed unlikely to them, they did not have any information enabling them to replace it with the true one. All that they were sure of after examining an the possibilities was that Fernanda was not Aureliano’s mother. Amaranta ?rsula was inclined to believe that he was the son of Petra Cotes, of whom she remembered only tales of infamy, and that supposition produced a twinge of horror in her heart.
Tormented by the certainty that he was his wife’s brother, Aureliano ran out to the parish house to search through the moldy and moth-eaten archives for some clue to his parentage. The oldest baptismal certificate that he found was that of Amaranta Buendía, baptized in adolescence by Father Nicanor Reyna during the time when he was trying to prove the existence of God by means of tricks with chocolate. He began to have that feeling that he was one of the seventeen Aurelianos, whose birth certificates he tracked down as he went through four volumes, but the baptism dates were too far back for his age. Seeing him lost in the labyrinths of kinship, trembling with uncertainty, the arthritic priest, who was watching him from his hammock, asked him compassionately what his name was.
“Aureliano Buendía,?he said.
“Then don’t wear yourself out searching,?the priest exclaimed with final conviction. “Many years ago there used to be a street here with that name and in those days people had the custom of naming their children after streets.?
Aureliano trembled with rage.
“So!?he said. “You don’t believe it either.?
“Believe what??

忽然，在他倆幸福得失去知覺的這個王國裏，箭一般地射來了加斯東將要回來的消息。奧雷連諾，布恩蒂亞和阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜睜着眼睛，面面相覷，他們擱心自問時，才明白他倆已經結爲一體，寧死也不願分離了。於是，阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜給丈夫寫了一封信，信的內容充滿了矛盾：她向加斯東保證說，她很愛他，十分希望重新見到他，但同時又承認她怎樣受到了命運的不幸安排，沒有奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞，她就活不下去，跟他倆的擔憂相反，加斯東回了一封平靜的信，幾乎象是父親寫的信，整整兩頁紙提醒他們防止變化無常的感情，信的結尾毫不含糊地祝願他倆幸福，就象他自己在短暫的夫妻生活中感到的那樣。加斯東的行爲完全出乎阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜的意料。她認爲自己給了丈大託詞，使丈夫拋棄了她，任命運去支配她。她覺得自己受到了侮辱。半年以後，加斯東從利奧波德維爾＊又寫了封信給她，說他終於重新找回了飛機，信裏除了要她把他的自行車寄去之外，並沒有什麼其他內容，因爲在他看來，他留在馬孔多的一切，只有自行車纔是唯一珍貴的。這封信使她更加惱火，奧雷連諾。 布恩蒂亞耐心地勸慰大發雷霆的阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜，竭力向她表示他能成爲一個跟她同甘共苦的好丈夫，加斯東留下的錢快要用完時，各種日常的操心事就落到了他倆身上，一種休慼與共的感情把他倆緊緊地聯結在一起——這種感情雖然沒有那種令人目眩、吞噬一切的情慾力量，卻能使他倆象情慾最熾烈時那樣相親相愛，無比幸福。在皮拉·苔列娜去肚的時候，他們已經在等待自己的孩子了。
懷孕期間，阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜曾想用魚脊骨編制一些項鍊去賣，可是除了梅爾塞德斯買去大約一打之外，其他主顧一個也沒找到。奧雷連諾·布思蒂亞這才第一回明白過來，他那語言上的才能、淵博的知識以及罕見的記性（他能把那些似乎是他不熟悉的遙遠的地方和各種瑣碎事情一一記住），都跟他妻子收藏的世代相傳的首飾箱一樣無用，想當初單是箱裏首飾的價值大概就抵得上馬孔多最後一批居民的全部存款。但他倆終於奇蹟般地活了下來。阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜既沒有失去良好的情緒，也沒有失去愛情上的創造才能，卻養成了飯後坐在長廊上的習慣，彷彿要把晌午時刻昏昏欲睡、浮想聯翩的神態保持下去似的，奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞總是陪伴着她。有時他倆就那麼默默無語、面對面地坐到深夜，彼此凝望着休息。在這種恰然自得的沉靜中，他倆的愛情仍跟早先在響聲不停的廖戰中一樣熾烈。只是渺茫的未來使他倆的心靈總是轉向過去。他倆常常憶起失去的天堂中連綿不斷的雨景；他們怎樣在院子的水塘裏僻哩啪啦地戲水，怎樣打死一隻只蜥蠍，把它們掛在烏蘇娜身上；怎樣跟烏蘇娜老太婆逗樂，假裝要活埋她的樣子。這些回憶向他們揭示了一條真理，從他們能夠記事的那一刻起，他倆在一塊兒就始終是幸福的。阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜想起，有一天午後，她走進首飾作坊，菲蘭達向她悅，小奧雷連諾不知是誰家的孩子，他是從一個漂在河上的柳條筐裏撿來的。在他倆看來，這個解釋不足爲信，但是他倆沒有更可靠的材料來代替這種說法，在探討了一切可能性之後，他倆深信不疑的一點是，菲蘭達決不可能是奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞的母親。阿瑪蘭塔·烏蘇娜傾向於這樣一種看法：他可能是佩特娜·柯特生的兒子，但關於這個婦人的情況，她記得的僅僅是各種污穢醜惡的流言蜚語，所以這種猜測在他們心裏不免引起反感。
他懷疑自己可能是妻子的弟弟，這種想法不時折磨着他，使他忍不住鑽到神父的屋子裏去，在那些潮氣侵蝕、蟲子至壞的文獻中，尋找自己的出身的可靠線索。他發現，一本最老的出生登記簿上提到一個奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞，說他在少年時代曾受過尼康諾。 萊茵納神父的洗禮，又說他當時曾想通過玩巧克力把戲來證明上帝的存在，奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞頓時產生一線希望，以爲他自己可能就是十七個奧雷連諾當中的一個，他在四大本厚書裏尋出這十七個奧雷連諾受洗禮的記錄，但他們受洗禮的日期，離他的年齡實在太遠，正在一旁受着風溼痛折磨的神父，從自己的吊牀上望見奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞激動得不住地哆嗦，被血統的問題搞得暈頭轉向，便同情地問他叫什麼名字。
“奧雷連諾·布恩蒂亞，”他說。
“那麼，你就不要白白地折磨自己了，”神父滿有把握地大聲說：“多年以前，這兒就有一條街用過這個名稱，當時的人都習慣用街名來給自己的兒女起名字。”
奧雷連諾不覺氣得渾身顫抖。
“哼！”他說。“這麼說，你也不相信羅。”
“相信什麼？”